Texas enjoyed the largest net in-migration of any state last year, while California (once again) suffered the largest net loss of residents, results of the latest annual U-Haul Growth Index released Monday reveal.
The Growth Index, based on 2.5 million transactions, “ranks states by their net gain (or loss) of customers who rented a one-way truck, trailer or U-Box® moving containers in one state and dropped off their equipment in another state,” the company explained in a press release.
Texas claimed the top growth title for the seventh time in the past 10 years, after ranking second behind South Carolina in 2024. Meanwhile, California had the most net out-migration for the sixth year in a row.
The split between the number of states with net growth and those with net loss in 2025 was “as balanced as we ever see it,” U-Haul told CNSNews in a statement:
“There were 25 states that had 50.1% arrivals or more (in-migration states), one state that was break-even with 50% coming and 50% going (No. 26 Wisconsin), and 24 states that had 49.9% arrivals or less (out-migration states) during 2025.”
“Blue-to-red state migration, a hotly debated political topic that became more pronounced after the pandemic of 2020, continues to be a discernable trend,” the U-Haul report noted.
Indeed, of the 10 states with the most net in-migration, seven have Republican governors, while nine of the 10 states with the worst net-migration have Democrat governors:
- Texas - R
- Florida - R
- North Carolina - D
- Tennessee - R
- South Carolina - R
- Washington - D
- Arizona - D
- Idaho - R
- Alabama - R
- Georgia - R
…
- Michigan - D
- Connecticut - D
- Ohio - R
- Pennsylvania - D
- Maryland - D
- Massachusetts - D
- New York - D
- New Jersey - D
- Illinois - D
- California - D
A state’s tax policy also appears to be correlated to migration, analysis by Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) suggests:
“Three of the top four states attracting movers have no personal income tax: Texas, Florida, and Tennessee.
“California is ranked dead last in the index and imposes the highest top personal income tax rate in the nation at 13.3%.”
What’s more, the average top personal tax rate for the 10 most-growth states (3.5%) is more than twice the average for bottom 10 states (7.2%).
Additionally, whether or not a state requires workers to join unions appears to be connected to net-migration results, as nine of the top 10 states have Right-to-Work laws, while all of the bottom 10 have forced unionism, ATR analysis shows.
One of the most lopsided years in terms of state migration was the pandemic year of 2020, when there were more than twice as many in-migration states (35) as out-migration states (15). However, the net changes in migration were greater in the states with losses – so much so that U-Haul ran out of trucks to rent people wanting to fleeing one state – the company explained in its statement to CNSNews:
“The states at the bottom of our growth list were VERY heavy out-migration that year (especially California, where we simply ran out of one-way equipment).”
